INTERNAL COMMUNICATION
CHAPTER 7: COMMUNICATION
Organizational communication is essential in selection, training,
performance reviews, problem-solving and determining strategy. It is
often not neutral, but an attempt from management to gauge or
change attitudes and behavior. There is a plethora of ways to
communicate with employees, see the communication escalator.
Communications are improved if you have social intelligence: the
ability to understand the thought and feelings of others and to
manage our relationships accordingly. It involves
Social awareness (what we sense about others).
- Primal empathy: reading others’ emotions intuitively from small cues (facial expression)
- Attunement: understanding the other person through attention and careful listening
- Empathic accuracy: understanding what someone feels/thinks through observation
- Social cognition: know how the social world works, what is expected
Social facility (how we act on that awareness).
- Synchrony: orchestrating interactions with the right gestures: smile, nod, timing.
- Self-preservation: ability to trigger desired emotional responses in others, charisma
- Influence: tuning action to fit the circumstances
- Concern: capacity for compassion, sharing others’ emotions or distress.
This is crucial in a culturally diverse world.
Interpersonal communication (= communication process): exchange of information and meaning
between at least 2 people. It often corresponds with social imperatives, norms and prerequisites. In
order to receive information, we have to decode or interpret the message. How the transmitter
phrases the message is a coding process: the transmitter chooses how to express a message for
transmission to someone else (chooses words and how it will be expressed). The success of
communication depends on the decoding of the receiver: the recipient interprets a message
transmitted to them.
Noise: anything that interferes with a communication signal, including coding/decoding problems.
Communication stumbles when transmitter and receiver have different frames of reference, and
don’t share experience and understanding.
Feedback: processes through which the transmitter of a message detect whether and how that
message has been received and decoded. We receive instant feedback with F2F communication.
Communication is so hard because decoding is often made difficult by deeper meaning. Also,
perceptual filters interfere with the communication process. Perceptual filters: individual
characteristics that interfere with the effective transmission of messages. Whether or not someone is
paying attention, frame of reference, etc. factors that make communication hard:
Power differences: superiors often have a limited understanding of subordinates
Gender differences: men and women communicate differently
Physical surroundings: room size, readiness to join a conversation
Language: variations in accent and dialect
Cultural differences related to communication norms
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,Decoding can go wrong by not sharing the same codebook, like words having different popular
meanings than the actual dictionary definition.
A theory related to the difficulty of communication is that of
media richness. This entails a number of characteristics of the
communication mediums:
Multiple cues
Speed of feedback
Personal focus
Natural language
Characteristics of the information/communication task are
complexity and ambiguity. This theory posits that higher levels of
complexity and ambiguity require richer media.
Verbal communication: the written or spoken conveying of message through language, words,
grammar and spelling. It focuses on what we can see, the messages and the channels.
We achieve what we want through questioning techniques. The answer to a question you ask will be
affected by your technique.
We use conversation controls to decide what
signals we convey. Verbal communication not only
directs communication in the desired direction, but
also behavior. The meaning of conversation control
may differ cross-culturally or cross-linguistically.
Non-verbal communication: the process of
coding meaning through behaviors such as
facial expressions, hand gestures and body
postures, clothing, eye movements, use of
physical space and para-language: pitch,
volume, intonation. Gestures and other
elements of non-verbal communication can
also differ cross-culturally. When verbal and non-verbal communication are inconsistent, we believe
the non-verbal communication. Feelings/emotions are transmitted through non-verbal.
Functions of non-verbal behavior: to reveal personal attributes, to exercise social control and
establish hierarchy, to promote social functioning, to develop good relationships, emotional display.
Modes of non-verbal behavior:
Kinesics: body movement (gestures, facial expressions)
Appearance: the way you look (dress, makeup, accessories)
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, Oculesics: with your eyes (eye contact, gaze, blinking, pupil dilation)
Haptics: through touch
Paralanguage: voice qualities (vocalics)
Olfactics: smell
Proxemics: physical space (different across cultures)
Chronemics: through the use of time (speech rate, talk time)
Environment and artefacts: through objects (landscape, design, personal objects)
When we’re lying, we can send non-verbal deceit cues: rapid shifts in gaze, long pauses, frequent
speech corrections. When we see someone attractive, we use preening gestures: smoothening our
clothes, stroking our hair, straightening our posture. Also:
Power tells: non-verbal signals that indicate to others how important/dominant someone is
or wants us to think he is. Like the strong and long Trump handshake.
The use of non-verbal cues differs across cultures
High-context cultures: Social and non-verbal Low-context cultures: Verbal communication is
cues are key to communication most important
Relationship first Business first
Agreement based on trust (a hand shake) Agreement based on legal contracts
Multiple intersections with others Separation in time, space and relations
Long-term relationships More short-term connections
Avoid misunderstandings:
1. Assume that others are different
2. Use description and avoid evaluation
3. Practise empathy
4. Treat interpreatations as working hypotheses (keep
questioning yuur conclusions and explanations)
Communication climate: the atmosphere in an organization in which ideas and information are
exchanged. Often companies are between these two.
Open, supportive communication climate Closed, defensive communication climate
Descriptive: informative rather than evaluative Judgmental: emphasis on apportioning blame, make
communication people feel incompetent
Solution-oriented: focus on problem-solving rather than on Controlling: conformity expected, inconsistency and
what is not possible change inhibited
Open and honest: no hidden messages Deceptive: hidden meanings, insincerity, manipulative
communication.
Caring: emphasis on empathy and understanding Non-caring: detached and impersonal, little concern for
others
Egalitarian: everyone valued regardless of role or status Superior: status and skill differences are emphasized in
communication
Forgiving: errors and mistakes are recognized as inevitable, Dogmatic: little discussion, unwillingness to accept views
focus is on minimizing them of other or compromise
Feedback: positive, essential to maintaining performance Hostile: needs of others are given little importance
and relationships
Traditional organizational communication is one-way, top-down and closed. With social media, it can
become two-way, bottom-up and open. Social networks encourage collaboration between teams
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